Mutlu Ozdogan

Associate Professor of Forest Ecology & Environmental Studies

Dr. Mutlu Ozdogan is an Assistant Professor in the Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies and the Department of Forest Ecology & Management. He was recently a NRC postdoctoral fellow at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. His research focuses on land-use / land-cover conversion and climate change impacts on the global water and energy cycles and how these impacts interact with ecosystem goods and services that are important to human well-being. He is also interested in improving the information content of satellite observations through algorithm and model development.

Dr. Ozdogan received a B.Sc. degree in Geological Engineering from Istanbul University in Turkey, followed by a M.Sc. in Geology from North Carolina State University and a M.A. degree in Environmental Remote sensing from Boston University. He then continued at Boston University to receive a Ph.D. degree in Geography and Environment in 2004. While at Boston, he worked at the Center for Remote Sensing on various projects related to water resource scarcity and satellite-assisted methods to search for additional resources in the Middle East. Dr. Ozdogan is currently developing a dataset on global irrigation extent with the help of satellite observations. This dataset, in conjunction with irrigation water use models, are used to assess irrigation feedback on climate and the sustainability of agricultural water resources that, by extension, affect global food security and human vulnerability. He has been supported by research grants from NASA, NSF, and governments of Oman and United Arab Emirates.